


There's Something about Sam

by trash4ficsaboutlurv



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Love Triangles, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash4ficsaboutlurv/pseuds/trash4ficsaboutlurv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, this was a prompt from an anon on Tumblr:</p><p>It's a love triangle, not a poly-amorous relationship. Both Steve and Bucky fall in love with Sam at the same time. Sam's confused and is having a hard time figuring out his feelings. Meanwhile the tension between Steve and Bucky is getting to a boiling point, interfering with both Avengers business and threatening to end their legendary friendship permanently.</p><p>So, I've never written a love triangle and I find them difficult to pull off (if all of modern YA is anything to go by), but I'm giving this my best shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Is Uncomfortable

“They keep their files on hard drives, now. No paper trail. No digital fingerprint.”

Fury paced in front of Steve, reciting the facts without looking at him. Steve fidgeted in his seat, balancing his shield between his knees and trying to look contrite and respectful.

Fury was still a little pissed with how poorly Steve and Tony had handled the Accords and he wasn’t shy about showing his censure. One way of getting the “ _you fucked up”_ message across was to address Steve like he was a misbehaving kid and Fury was the elementary school principal or a really stern father. It really worked a number on Steve and he was very eager for the day Fury moved on to being disappointed in another one of the kids.

“They’ve got maybe a hundred of these hard drives with different agents,” Fury continued. “I’ve tracked down a handful of them, stopped some wheels in motion. What you’re going find at this base in Utah will only be a piece of Hydra’s puzzle toward reemergence. But if we can put enough of these hard drives to bed, we’ve got a good chance of dismantling them once and for all. They’re weak right now. We need to nuke them.”

Steve nodded, trying to give off _I’ve learned my lesson and won’t get into any more public fights with Tony_ vibes.

“We don’t want a lot of noise on this, but there’s firepower at this site, which leads me to believe that this is _one_ wheel we absolutely want to stop from rolling. So, I’ve pulled together a team. You.”

_Don’t say Bucky. Don’t say Bucky._

“Rhodey.”

_Don’t say Bucky. Don’t say Bucky._

“Sam.”

_Don’t say Bucky. Don’t say Bucky._

“And Bucky.”

_Fuck._

“That good with you, Cap.”

Steve slouched down in his chair. “Yes, sir.”

 

Steve and Bucky had been having some…issues the last couple months. And Steve wished it were over something a little more noble than they’d both fallen in love with the same guy. Friendships were supposed to be stronger than that. Especially their friendship. Which had withstood both of their apparent deaths, two brainwashed assassination attempts, and their two shockingly irregular cases of PTSD. They’d made it through all of that intact. Brothers in all but blood.

But everything had fallen to pieces two months ago when Bucky had come to Steve and said, “I think I might be falling for Sam.”

A mechanical, clattering voice had shouted MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! over and over again in Steve’s head while blinky red lights went off behind his eyes and Steve had forgotten every ounce of good feeling toward his best friend in that moment.

Because Bucky might _think_ he was falling for Sam, but Steve _knew_ how he felt about his partner, had known for the better part of four years, since the infamous Search for Bucky had turned into long strings of nights spent in lumpy hotel rooms together and firefights up in North Dakota and hurried retreats down by the border of Mexico.

And Steve had told Sam about three years ago. They’d even kissed and it had been like actually coming off the ice for the first time, the world warm and bright and good. But Sam had said that Steve’s head wasn’t on straight yet and that getting into a relationship would probably be a disaster and Sam had finally moved on from Riley, and he didn’t want complicated right now and all these reasonable things that drove a wedge deeper and deeper into Steve’s soft, beating heart. And Steve had no idea how to say, how to prove that he was better now, god dammit. And so, he’d spent the last three years trying to put his crush on Sam away in a box and drop it into the ocean _Titanic-_ style, but it kept being washed up on the shore with a little note, _Ha! You tried. You still love him_! in big, bold calligraphy.

And for Bucky to show up and get in the way of Steve’s admittedly timid plans to one day strike up a conversation with Sam about maybe seeing if the relationship thing was worth it? The audacity! The unfairness of it all!

Steve had been forced to watch Misty Knight and Sam grow close two years ago with the trepidation of someone watching their spouse ship off to war. Sam and Misty had kept up a casual dalliance, until Misty ended it because she wanted something serious and Sam didn’t. ( _Didn’t want anything serious with Misty? Or didn’t want anything serious, period?_ That sort of question kept Steve up at night.) If Misty and Sam were hard to watch, Bucky and Sam would be unbearable. Might as well shoot Steve in the gut and throw him back in the Potomac. That would be it.

“Do you think he’d be interested?” Bucky asked -- the follow-up question to the bold declaration that had just rocked Steve’s world. “Steve?”

Steve’s tongue felt thick and clumsy. “You like Sam?” he repeated. But it came out “You lie Tham?”

“What’s not to like?” Bucky said, his eyes twinkling like a fricking cartoon. “I’m thinking of asking him out.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” _I wouthn’t thoo that._

“Steve, you sound really weird. And why not? Is Sam dating someone? Do you think he wouldn’t be interested?”

Steve took a gulp of water. “I just think it might ruin the dynamic. You know, the trio? It’d be weird, right?”

Bucky shrugged. “We’d figure it out.”

Steve winced.

“Why don’t you talk to him, first?” Bucky suggested. “You guys are pretty close. Check the temperature. If you say he’s not interested, I’ll back off. No harm, no foul.”

Bucky had given Steve an easy way out with that and Steve jumped on it. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

But every time Bucky asked if Steve had gotten around to it, Steve had a really good excuse why he hadn’t. Sam’s sister just had the baby. Sam had a lot going on at the VA. Some egomaniac had got a hold of a Chitauri blaster and was wiping out downtown Newark.

“You know, I’m starting to think I should just talk to him myself,” Bucky said a few days ago. “Because obviously _you_ don’t want to.”

“Um.”

“What’s the problem, Steve? Do you like him or something?”

And Steve’s stupid, traitorous Irish blood raced to the surface of his skin and Bucky’s eyes widened.

“You like him!” he accused. “How did I not see it before? You fucking like Sam.”

“Say it louder,” Steve hissed. “I don’t think Natasha and Clint in Moscow heard you.”

“So you’ve been blocking me because you like him?” Bucky asked, his face a mixture of perplexity and outrage.

Steve winced, incapable of denying it, but trying very hard to wiggle out of having to admit he’d done something wrong.

Bucky shook his head, his hair flopping into his face. “That’s pretty dirty,” he said.

Steve grimaced. “It wasn’t dir—”

Bucky snorted e. “How do you justify it to yourself, then? ‘We’re better as a trio?’ ‘It wouldn’t be fair to have a duo and the odd-man-out?’ Or did you not even get around to justifying it. Too scared that Sam would want to date me.”

“I should have told him when I said I would,” Steve admitted.

 “You’re goddamn right,” Bucky muttered.

Steve had been living in a state of dread the last few days, expecting at any moment for Sam to knock on his bedroom door and say, eyes alight, “Bucky and I are going on a date tomorrow night.” It hadn’t happened yet and Steve couldn’t figure out why Bucky was even waiting at this point, except to torture him. Bucky hadn’t spoken to Steve since he found out Steve was carrying a torch for Sam, but he’d thrown enough nasty glares to get his point across.

And Steve was quickly moving from _Sorry, I stood in the way_ to _Fuck you,_ I _love Sam and you couldn’t begin to appreciate the perfection that is that man._

Which wasn’t the attitude to have when Bucky came into the kitchen that night where Steve was sitting going over Fury’s notes and said, “I’m talking to Sam tonight. Thought I’d give you a heads up.”

“Hmm,” Steve said, closing the folders and meeting Bucky’s truculent gaze. “I thought you’d come to your senses.”

Bucky laughed humorlessly and dropped into a chair. “Are we doing this, Steve? Because I don’t think I ate enough protein today to bench-press all the shit you’re about to spew.”

“So you’ve already decided that none of my points are valid.”

“You’ve already decided that you know what’s best for the three of us.”

“You’re not in love with Sam, Bucky. You just haven't met that many people since we came out of hiding.”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert on who I love?”

“Well, for starters, you’ve always been into girls!”

“Did my brainwashed eyes deceive me? Did I _not_ see you make it with Sharon in _front_ of Sam? And if I recall, you wanted to make it with her aunt 75 years ago!”

“That’s different. I’m—”

“Captain Thinks-He-Knows-Everything? Captain Doesn’t-Want-Sam-until-Bucky-Does? Captain Big Head Asshole?”

“Is this how you plan on wooing Sam? Calling him names? Because you’re off to a great start with all the attempted murders under your belt.”

“Oh, screw you!” Bucky said, springing out of his seat and startling Steve into a defensive posture. Bucky scoffed. “I’m not gonna hit you, you idiot.”

“I know that,” Steve said, feeling very much like an idiot.

“Let’s just give each other some space, alright?”

Steve shook his head. “Gonna be kinda hard. Fury put us on assignment with Sam and Rhodey.” He tapped the files on the table between them.

Bucky clenched his metal fist. “Perfect.”

“You could always ask to be reassigned,” Steve pointed out.

“And leave you alone with Sam? No thank you.”

“I was alone with Sam for two years before we found you,” Steve pointed out.

Bucky smirked. “Oh yeah, and in that whole time, he never fell for you. I guess I don’t really have anything to worry about.”

Steve scowled. That hit a little too close to the truth for comfort. “I’m going to bed,” he said jerkily.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

He gathered up the mission intel files on the table and slouched to his room. He couldn’t believe he’d just had a fight with his best friend about another guy. And not just any guy. About Sam. Who _had_ had two years to fall for Steve’s awkward, bumbling charm and hadn’t. Bucky was right. Steve tossed the folders on to his bed and sat on the edge of his mattress, his head in his hands. His stomach hurt like he was going to throw up. One of the great (read: annoying) things about the serum was Steve never got sick, so any nausea and headaches had to be chalked up to internal turmoil. He glanced at the glowing alarm clock on his nightstand. It was definitely too late to go out running, but being the leader of the Avengers gave him an all-access pass to the SHIELD facilities. Maybe he’d kill a couple punching bags.

 

***

There was definitely some weird juju on the quinjet. Some unexplained tension between Steve and Bucky that Sam wasn’t touching with a ten-foot pole. One time those two got in an argument about _Star Wars_ vs. _Star Trek_ that had rivalled the fight on the helicarrier for intensity. Sam preferred not to even ask and just let whatever this was roll over.

Luckily, Rhodey wanted to fly the jet and Sam had agreed to copilot, so the SHIELD pilots who were going to fly the quinjet offsite after the drop were in the back with Steve and Bucky. Sam, for one, did not envy them. Being around squabbling Steve and Bucky was like being stuck in a married couple’s fight in a small room where you wanted to pretend you couldn’t hear every sordid detail and they’d sort of forgotten you were there anyway. Unpleasant.

“How’s it feel to be flying again?” Sam asked Rhodey once they were airborne.

“It’s not like being in War Machine,” Rhodey admitted, patting his leg braces, “but it’s better than nothing.”

Sam nodded, feeling that familiar niggle of guilt at the exact variables of Rhodey’s long, hard fall two years ago.

“Seeing anyone? Doing anything?”

Rhodey shook his head. “Been a little busy with SHIELD being back on the radar. Haven’t had time.”

“Didn’t you have something with that colonel? Danvers? I saw something on Twitter, but it wasn’t confirmed.”

“Carol’s a good friend,” Rhodey admitted.

“You certainly have a type,” Sam laughed.

Rhodey grinned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“ _Agent_ Hill. _Lieutenant_ Rambeau. _Colonel_ Danvers.”

“Maria and I were never an item,” Rhodey objected.

“But you’re the only one of us to call her Maria.”

“Well, it’s her name.”

“And you guys have been spotted out and about.”

“We’re friends.”

“Well, you can’t deny that you and Monica were something.”

Sam grinned as Rhodey rolled his eyes and focused a little too much on the blinky dials in front of him. Sam had walked in on Monica and Rhodey in a Stark Tower men’s bathroom of all places.

“I should have let her blast you like she wanted,” Rhodey muttered.

“I’ll lay off,” Sam promised. “It’s just hard not to be a little interested. You’re getting up there in age. Wouldn’t want you to die alone because you spent the last thirty years making sure Tony didn’t get himself killed.”

Rhodey shrugged. “I can’t say I don’t miss those days a little.”

“How is he?” Sam asked.

“I think _this_ retirement is going to stick. He’s tinkering, but it’s just to keep busy. Pepper says he’s still not going to therapy, which I can certainly believe. But at least he’s not drinking or building fifty suits a day.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. He patted Rhodey’s shoulder. “He’ll pull through.”

Rhodey nodded, stared out at the bright blue sky for a while. He lightened the mood when he turned to Sam and said “Did I sense some tension between your soldiers? Romantic or otherwise?” a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Sam snorted. “I don’t know what’s up with them, but it definitely wasn’t romantic tension. Just your good old-fashioned tension tension, I think.” He shrugged. “Steve’s been hella weird the last coupla months. Maybe Bucky told him to snap out of it.”

“By punching him in the dick?” Rhodey asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past him. Buck has 0 finesse.”

Rhodey laughed. “We’re close. Let’s prep for touchdown.”

The ride in the SUV from the drop site to the base house – an empty two-story number in a new housing development that looked out on the Sheeprock Mountains – was just this side of brutal. Steve and Bucky were practically bristling, which was only somewhat mitigated by the fact that Steve was driving and Buck was riding in the back behind Sam.

“Maybe you should drive in the left lane,” Bucky snarked at one point. “I think there’s some potholes over there you missed.”

Steve’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel and his jaw tightened.

“This is uncomfortable,” Rhodey pointed out about thirty minutes into the drive, and Sam laughed, but he was the only one.

He started fiddling with the radio just to have something to do. Through the scraping static, he finally caught a familiar song, Journey’s _Don’t Stop Believing._

“Oh, I like this song,” Steve said exactly as Bucky kicked the back of Sam’s chair and said, “Ugh, Sam, no.”

“I’m cool with it,” Rhodey said, “in case my opinion matters.”

Sam turned and smiled apologetically at Bucky. “Sorry, man. You’re outnumbered on this one.”

Bucky, for some reason, glared at the back of Steve’s head like every single problem in the universe were directly Steve’s fault.

It was a relief to get out of the car at the base house and busy himself helping Rhodey into his wheelchair. Steve and Bucky went ahead.

“Did I mention that was uncomfortable?” Rhodey asked. “Because it was. Really uncomfortable.”

Sam smiled. “You might have mentioned it. I think my tolerance for ‘uncomfortable’ has been permanently damaged by walking in on you and Monica. I think you guys might have invented that position, by the way. Did you ever give it a name?”

Rhodey scowled. “I brought the War Machine suit, I can control it with a remote, and it has a lot of guns. Are you sure you want to mess with me?”

“I want to mess with you a little,” Sam said.

Rhodey folded his leg braces and put them in the pockets on either side of his chair.

“Has Tony started mass producing those yet?” Sam asked, walking alongside Rhodey in his wheelchair up the gravel driveway. “They’re probably way ahead of what anyone else is doing.”

“Yeah, the braces are one of the things he’s tinkering with. Keeps sending me new ones with fancy, unnecessary upgrades and capabilities.”

Sam shook his head. Tony was a whole other issue these days, holed up in Malibu, not taking anyone’s calls. By all accounts, he seemed to be perfectly mentally sound, but he was nothing like his old self, the Tony Stark they’d all known (and loathed or loved, as it went). It was a mess, one of the fallouts of the Accords and Siberia that hadn’t been tidily resolved one way or another.

When Rhodey and Sam came into the house, Bucky had already spirited upstairs to one of the bedrooms and Steve had thrown the mission files on the coffee table and also disappeared.

“Bucky and Steve and I aren’t friends,” Rhodey said, “so it falls to you to figure out what the fuck is going on with those two.”

“Or we could ignore it and pretend it’s not happening,” Sam suggested.

Rhodey snorted. “Yeah, that has a way of working out perfectly fine.”

Sam sighed and threw his bag on the couch. “Fine.”

He went upstairs in search of Steve, but ran into Bucky first, who had somehow changed out of his op gear and into basketball shorts faster than seemed humanly possible.

“Hey, Sam,” he said, smiling for the first time all day.

Bucky only had about four smiles in his rolodex. There was the sad smile, the tragic smile, the that-was-funny-but-life-is-still-a-mess smile, and the sunshine smile, which was the rarest of all. Sam had been the recipient of that last smile a lot more often recently and it was nice. Very, very nice. This current smile was of the sunshine variety and it caught Sam off guard considering Bucky’s foul mood all day.

“Hey, Buck, where’s Steve?”

Bucky frowned. “I don’t know. Not tracking him.”

“You guys okay? You seem a little tense.”

Bucky shrugged. “We’re fine.”

Sam raised a brow. “You don’t seem fine.”

“Do you know if the fridge is stocked?” Bucky asked.

“Should be.”

“Do you think they got beer I keep asking for? They’re always putting in Budweiser, when I specifically ask for—”

“The most impossible-to-find brands imaginable.”

“They’re not impossible to find. They’re in Switzerland.”

“You are such a beer snob, Buck.”

Bucky grinned. “I like what I like,” he said, his voice dropping a few octaves and going velvet soft.

Sam blinked in surprise. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that was flirty. Especially by Bucky’s standards. He laughed to hide his confusion. “Well, you’re stuck with Budweiser this time around.”

Bucky huffed. “Stuck with a lot of things.” He pulled the t-shirt he’d been holding in his hand over his head, covering up his broad chest.

Sam patted Bucky’s shoulder as he stepped past him. “Gonna go find Steve.”

Steve was in the last bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a very intense expression that was completely indecipherable to Sam. Which was impressive considering Sam had been learning to read Steve for four years and was pretty damn good at it, besides.

“Knock, knock,” he said, leaning in the doorway.

Steve looked up and smiled. “Sam.”

“Hey, man.”

“Hey.” He patted the bed beside him. “What’s up?”

Sam came to sit. “I was gonna ask you that. What are you and Bucky fighting about?”

“We’re not fighting,” Steve said, but he blushed bright red as he said it.

“You’re such a bad liar, Steve.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“Is this about _Star Wars_ again?”

Steve laughed. “How have _you_ been? We live together and I think this is the first time we’ve hung out in, like, two weeks?”

“I’m good,” Sam said, noticing but not commenting on the very unsubtle subject change.

“Tell me what’s been happening at the VA,” Steve said.

Sam humored Steve and eventually sort of forgot why he’d come up in the first place. He and Steve swapped stories until their sides hurt from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of their lives. When Sam finally decided to head out, he grabbed Steve’s shoulder and said, “But seriously, Steve—”

Steve’s eyes widened.

“Why did you unilaterally decide you could have the biggest bed? This is the only king in the house.”

Steve grinned. “We could always share,” he said, all smug and silly.

Sam’s mind snagged on memories of motel nights two years ago that had almost been something, but hadn’t. He smiled like it didn’t matter. “Oh no, you’re probably a cuddler. They’d have to bring the Jaws of Life to get me out of this bed tomorrow morning.”

“Like you’d want to get out,” Steve said. His smile was so wide and dazzling, it made Sam feel a little achey. His hair was sticking up like a baby chick’s feathers and he was still in his op gear, standard black thermals, but he’d taken off the vest. Steve looked really good in black; Sam had always thought so. It took Sam a couple seconds to realize he was just sort of gazing at Steve (but then, Steve was gazing back, so…).

Sam rapped his knuckles on the door frame. “Gonna go over those files again,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Sam rushed down the stairs two at a time, as if hurrying would help him escape that cloud of inconvenient feelings chasing him. Sam had decided that dating Steve was too complicated three years ago and it had been the right decision. No need going over old ground expecting something new.

The next morning, Steve stopped by Sam’s room to say he was going to do some recon at the Hydra base. When Sam sat up to go with, Steve told him it was cool, that he wanted some alone time and it might as well be productive alone time.

“Is this about whatever the hell is going on with you and your bestie?” Sam asked.

Steve’s face hardened. “What’d Bucky say?”

Sam shook his head. “Nothing. And I’m assuming you’re no longer under the impression that I’m an idiot so you’re not going to lie and say everything’s fine. Again.”

Steve looked heavenward with his hands on his hips. “You’re right. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m gonna go do recon by myself, so I can come up with a way to not have to lie to you.”

Sam grimaced. “It’s too early for me to try to figure what that meant, but I’m pretty sure I should be stopping you.” He pulled his pillow over his face. “I’m not gonna, though. So be safe.”

An hour or so later, Sam went into the kitchen to find Bucky drinking coffee and glaring at the clock. Or maybe just looking at it. Bucky’s face did glaring even when he didn’t mean for it to.

“Morning, Buck.”

“Hey, Sam, how’d you sleep?”

“It’s like no one has ever heard of a firm mattress,” he complained.

“You should probably just sleep on the ground. You have never approved of a single mattress you’ve slept on since I’ve known you.”

“I’m sure there’s a mattress I wouldn’t mind sleeping on,” Sam said distractedly, looking in the fridge for some kind of breakfast materials.

When he glanced back, Bucky had the oddest look on his face. Like he was immensely uncomfortable even just sitting at the dining room table in his tank and sweats.

“What?” Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head. “Nothing. Where’s your bestie?”

Sam smiled. This was the running joke between the three of them, a competition about who was whose best bestie. It was dumb and silly, but they’d been doing it so long it was calcified habit.

“He went to scout everything out.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Typical. Mr. I Don’t Need Backup Because I’m Captain America.”

“Kettle and pot, Bucky. You stormed several Hydra bases before we got the all clear.”

“Yeah, well—” Bucky shrugged, like a roll of his shoulders could brush away his hypocrisy.

Sam grinned. “I like your hair, by the way. The haystack really works on you. Some people would call that sex hair.”

Bucky’s look went from relaxed to… _something_ …in half a second. On any other person, Sam would have interpreted it as attraction. But it was Bucky, so it could have been any number of things. Constipation. Homicidal urges. A cramp.

Sam busied himself putting bread in the toaster and comparing the softness of two avocadoes.

“Do you want anything or are you taking a page of Clint’s book and subsisting on coffee?”

“There are worse things to subsist on,” Bucky said.

“Yeah,” Sam granted. “But if you’re going to have super soldier metabolism, might as well go all out. Chocolate mousse cake for breakfast. Steak for your morning snack. You know, get decadent.”

Bucky smiled and Sam knew he wasn’t imagining it this time. There was definite heat. “Sam, I—”

Rhodey wheeled into the kitchen. “I know you guys put me on the couch so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs, but I would absolutely rather drag myself up 1000 stairs than sleep one more night on that thing. Who designs a sofa with spikes in the cushions? Who?”

Sam laughed. “We can trade if you want. One of these super soldiers could carry you up those stairs, easy-peasy.”

Rhodey snorted. “Yeah, what’s my dignity anyway? Morning, Sam. Barnes.”

“Rhodes.”

Sam winced. He kept forgetting that Bucky and Rhodey weren’t exactly best buds. It was sort of a mystery to Sam. If Rhodey was going to be mad at anyone about his injury, it was going to be Sam, Steve, or Vision, not Bucky. Which suggested a fundamental incompatibility of personalities was the real problem.

Sam thought they were both pretty great. Rhodey and he had been friends since Sokovia and were well within range of being best friends. And things between Sam and Bucky had been…turbulent but they were getting better, especially since the U.N. granted all the Avengers pardons about the Accords and let them come out of hiding. Fury had come back from the dead over the Civil War (that’s what the media had dubbed that short fight in an airport parking lot, because journalists had to make their money somehow) and negotiated to make the Accords less fascist. The UN had sunk that awful ocean jail as a prerequisite of Sam and Wanda signing. Since that whole mess had died down, Bucky had been downright tolerable--of late, friendly bordering on flirty. But as it stood, there was some weird tension between Steve and Bucky, between Bucky and Rhodey, and between Steve and Rhodey (Steve hadn’t quite forgiven Rhodey for calling him arrogant that one time and Rhodey was pissed that Steve had hurt Tony and was, in his words, “a self-righteous, handsome bag of insubordination”). Was Sam the only one not beefing with every other person in this house?

“Steve went ahead to do some recon,” Sam told Rhodey, trying not to poke anyone’s sensibilities this early in the morning.

“No back up?”

Sam shrugged. “I offered to go, but he seemed pretty insistent that he could do it alone.”

Rhodey shrugged. “I know Fury only assigned me to this because none of you are good with authority. And I don’t want to sound like a babysitter, but that’s essentially what I am. And I’m trying to be a good one. You know, do my part and all. So, as a general rule, let’s not spy on Hydra cells in the middle of Utah by ourselves, _capisce_?”

Bucky crossed his arms across his chest. “I think if Stevie thinks he can handle it, he can.”

“Yeah, Steve isn’t exactly the best judge of what Steve can handle,” Rhodey said.

Sam laughed. “That is…surprisingly accurate, Rhodey. And I hear you, man. When Steve comes back, I’m sticking to him like glue.”

Bucky snorted and stalked out of the room.

“What’s his problem?” Rhodey asked.

“Everyone’s been a little cranky. I think it’s all the fresh mountain air.”

Rhodey nodded. “I guess there’s not much to do until Steve gets back. Do you mind if I finish some reading? This liaising between the Avengers and the UN is a fucking tedious, never-ending book report.”

“No problem, man. I’m gonna go see what’s wrong with Buck.”

“Good luck with that. Your soldiers are a piece of work.”

“They’re not mine,” Sam muttered, but Rhodey was already busy perusing the inside of the fridge for breakfast.

Sam found Bucky sitting in the backyard on one of the decorative boulders strewn across the dry lawn. He was staring at a fixed point of the fence with particularly murderous intent. Sam shielded his eyes from the harsh glare of the sun on Bucky’s metal arm.

“Are you wearing sunscreen?” he called, pointing up at the hot, relentless sky. “Your pasty skin wasn’t really made for Utah.”

Bucky tilted his head and his hair swung forward into his face. “You know, I think I’m good. I survived a fall off a moving train into a mountain. I don’t think melanoma is going to take me out.”

Sam nodded. He was still taken by surprise when Bucky mentioned his trauma so casually. “Any particular reason you’re pissed at Rhodey?” he asked.

Bucky shrugged. “I’m not mad at him.”

“Mad at Steve then?”

Bucky wiped the sweat from his forehead and didn’t answer. So he was mad at Steve.

“Isn’t your arm going to overheat?” Sam teased. “Fuse together or some shit? You should come back inside.”

Bucky smiled. “Are you trying to get me back in the house for something special?” he asked, his eyes bright and happy.

“Rhodey’s playing politician and I didn’t bring any VA paperwork with me. You’re my only hope against boredom.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Bucky said, getting up and walking into the shade.

“Only the ones I really like,” Sam said. He tousled Bucky hair as he went past and Bucky smiled one of his pure-sunshine smiles.

When Steve got home six or seven hours later, he had a plan to extract the drive with minimal fuss. He went over the strategy with the team while they ate dinner.

Bucky and Steve were still having their fight, apparently, and there was a lot of sniping back and forth that was really awkward to be a witness to, especially without context.

Sam fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably but was saved by a text from Natasha with a picture of her and Clint holding a hard drive in matching “I <3 Russia” shirts. The message read # _SWAG._ Sam texted back: _You’re both much too white to say swag. Ever._

He showed the text to Rhodey, who concurred.

Dinner dissolved after that, Rhodey needing to be on a video call with some Vietnamese ambassadors, Fury, and Ross (who unfortunately, still had a job).

Sam went up to his room and changed into a T-shirt and sweats. He got into bed and went over the plan Steve had outlined for tomorrow’s op. Really visualized his roles.

A knock at the door took him out of that sweet spot right before sleep. “’Sup, Bucky?”

“Thought Rhodey was sleeping in here.”

“Did you offer to carry him up?”

Bucky turned to show a small scratch on his metal arm. “The guy can’t walk anymore, but his aim is pretty impeccable.”

“What’d he throw?”

“Vase.”

“It’s not that he minds the help,” Sam had to point out. “It’s that he doesn’t want _your_ help.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, leaning against the door frame. “I sort of picked that up.”

Sam swung his legs over the edge of the bed so he could face Bucky head on. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Steve?”

Bucky’s face shuttered momentarily, all emotion retreating behind vault doors before he sighed and let himself be open. Or as open as Bucky every really got. “It can wait. The mission first.”

“Okay,” Sam said, watching Bucky carefully. “Mission first. But you’ll tell me after.”

Bucky pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, Sam. Promise.”

****

In retrospect, everyone could have behaved a little better. Well, Rhodes was at the home base, throwing static on all of Hydra’s systems with his suit, and Sam and Redwing were in Sector 12 disabling the alarms. So, really, Steve and Bucky could have behaved better.

Still, Steve was 100% sure that even the most biased of people – even one of Bucky’s woobifying fans who were always sending him letters about how tender and precious and “smol” (people kept making up new words and Steve was tired of trying to figure them all out) he was – would agree that Bucky was more at fault.

Because Steve had been minding his business, creeping down the hallway just behind every alarm and lock that Sam and Rhodes were dismantling remotely. Steve and Bucky’s job was to take out any human guards in their way quickly and quietly, grab the hard drive, and leave as stealthily as they had come. Key word: stealth.

So when Bucky turned and asked if Steve was wearing the stealth suit because it was practically painted on and he wanted an advantage with Sam, Steve had pressed his finger to his lips and continued down the hallway. Here, _crept_ being the operative word.

Because Bucky was doing a runway walk of murder, his combat boots a-clomping, sending handwritten, embossed invitations to every guard within a mile radius.

“Buck, could you walk any louder?” Steve hissed

Bucky glowered. “Probably.”

Steve had to grit his teeth against a childish remark in turn, because Captain America wasn’t allowed to be petty. “Can we save all the animosity until post-op?” he asked.

Bucky laughed sarcastically. “You’re all about bottling up your feelings until it’s least convenient. I’m just following your lead, oh great Captain.”

Steve sighed. Bucky could be so… _Bucky_ sometimes. How had Steve forgotten?

“Fine,” he said. “My timing was shit. Happy now?”

“Not even close.”

They turned into one of the smaller hallways. Steve came up behind the first of the guards and held his hand over the guard’s nose and mouth until he went limp. Bucky was a little less gentle with the next guard and when Steve made a “be easy” face, Bucky said, “Actual Nazis, Steve. Nazis.”

“I know, but—”

“But what? You got some unrequited feelings for Hydra now?”

“You’re being an asshole,” Steve said.

“You started it.”

 “I already said sorry about that, and last I checked, I haven’t tried to stop you talking to him yourself. So maybe stop blaming me that you’re just scared to ask him out.”

“You just took some _staggering_ levels in hypocrisy, bud.”

“Whatever.”

“Nice comeback. Did someone write it for you or was that one of your own creation?”

“Fuck you, Bucky. There’s no way you haven’t known that I love Sam. You’d have to be willfully ignorant.”

Bucky gaped. “Are you telling me you have a secret crush on every person you’re friends with? Because from where I’ve been sitting, you guys look like a coupla pals being pals. Should I not ask out Natasha either? Because you guys have a coupla inside jokes. Could be you’re in love with her, too.”

“You know what? Maybe you should ask Sam out. Here’s how you’ll start: _From the moment I ripped the steering wheel out of your moving car on a freeway, I knew it was meant to be. When I snatched your wings off and threw you out of the sky, who would’ve guessed I was the one falling_?”

“Oh, Stevie. Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve got a pretty solid opener. _Hi, Sam. I’ve creepily pined for you since the moment I stalked you around the National Mall like a fucking predator. I write your name in my dream journal and have sadness walks to think about how tragic my unrequited love is_. What do you think of that, Cap?”

“I think you’re a piece of—”

It wasn’t until Steve and Bucky heard the march of boots that they realized they’d been shouting.

“Look what you did!” they said at the same time.

Their comms crackled to life and Sam said, “None of the alarms were tripped, but these guys are on the move. And I think they’re going to pin you. Should I intercept?”

“No!” Bucky and Steve both shouted.

“Send the drone,” Rhodey suggested.

“He has a name,” Sam said. “And he’s coming in. Steve, Bucky, when I say drop, hit the deck, okay.”

“Yeah, Sam,” Steve said. He squared his shield in front of him and stared down the hallway, waiting for the enemy.

“In case anyone’s interested,” Bucky said in a sour tone, “Steve’s big mouth brought these guys. So, you know, if we die, I’d like a ‘All Steve’s Fault’ sort of thing on my grave.”

Steve gritted his teeth and didn’t respond.

Rhodey broke the awkward silence by saying, “So we’re back to all being uncomfortable. Just what this fire fight needed.”

“Sam,” Steve said, “do you know how many are coming?”

“Redwing’s showing ten or fifteen. Nothing we haven’t handled a thousand times.”

“This is a little like Vegas,” Steve said.

He could hear the smile in Sam’s voice when he said, “What happens in Vegas, Steve.”

A small whirring noise accompanied Redwing’s entrance and then the Hydra soldiers were upon them. “Down,” Sam called. Steve and Bucky threw themselves to the ground as Redwing let out a 360 degree volley of lasers. Hydra agents dropped to the ground instantly and it was short work for Steve and Buck to take out the two or three who hadn’t been hit.

“Thanks, Sam,” Bucky said.

“Thank me when you get out of there. More are on the way and Redwing’s kinda blown his wad.”

Rhodey laughed. “That is the grossest thing you’ve ever said, Sam.”

And then Bucky and Steve had to fight their way out of the hallway toward the control room and for the ten minutes it took to reach the hard drive, they were a well-oiled machine. But being good on the battlefield was second-nature to them. The moment the last Hydra asshole fell, Bucky dropped Steve’s shield on the ground with a clank and stepped over the body to enter the control room.

Steve had to chase after his shield a little awkwardly as Bucky had managed to set it on a roll. “Couldn’t have just handed it to me?” Steve asked.

“Fuck you.”

“Uh, the comms are still on,” Sam said.

“What are you guys even fighting about?” Rhodey demanded.

“None of your damn business,” Bucky growled.

“Not cool,” Sam said and Steve only relished Bucky’s chagrinned face a little.

They both turned their comms off and strode into the control room. The hard drive was hooked up to a computer in the center of the room. Bucky snatched it out of the tower and tucked it in his pocket.

“I’m pretty sure that can corrupt the data,” Steve said.

“I’m pretty sure I said fuck you. And I meant it.”

Steve sighed. “Are we really just going to be pissed about this?”

Bucky shook his head. “I’m going to ask Sam out and we’re going to date and be plenty happy. _You’re_ going to be pissed about this, but I’ll be fine.”

“I’m really glad this op was such a stunning success. Maybe Fury will think twice about teaming us up again since clearly you can’t put aside personal shit for what was supposed to be a quiet mission.”

“We got the hard drive, didn’t we?”

Steve didn’t say anything. He turned on his comms. “Sam, meet us at the rendezvous point. Rhodes, call in SHIELD for clean-up. Nice work, everybody.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Nice work. Hey, Sam, let’s go find some of my snobby beer when we’re back on the east coast to celebrate.”

Steve’s stomach clenched into a tight knot as Sam said, “Sounds good, man. You’re buying.”

“We should also start doing our morning runs again,” Steve said, glaring at Bucky as he spoke. “Got a little winded today. Need you to keep me in shape, Sam.”

Sam laughed. “I know you’re just fucking with me, Steve, but one of these days, I’m gonna surprise you out there.”

Steve opened his mouth to rib him some more, but Rhodey interrupted: “Nobody’s gonna ask _me_ on a date? I’m starting to feel like the only one not invited to prom”

Steve could feel the blood rush to his face, embarrassed at being called out so blatantly, but Sam just laughed.

“I gotcha, Rhodey. We’ll do karaoke next weekend. There’s enough Sam to go around.”

As he said this, Sam and Redwing came into the rendezvous spot where Bucky and Steve were waiting. Sam came up to Steve and they did their little handshake, the one all the Avengers said was corny, but that Sam and Steve did all the damn time.

Sam grinned. “Thought this wasn’t going to be a firefight,” he said, touching the sleeve of Steve’s suit where a bullet had grazed the fabric.

“You know me,” Steve said. “Can’t back down from a fight.”

Bucky harrumphed. “That’s why he’s always got me around,” he growled. “To save his dumb ass.” Bucky had said this particular sentiment a dozen times a day in the past, but today the venom was unmistakable.

“That’s why we’ve got each other,” Sam said. He mussed Bucky’s hair, which had been pulled back into a bun.

“Trying to give me more sex hair,” Bucky asked.

“Maybe a little,” Sam said, laughing.

Steve felt sick to his stomach, but he smiled through the nausea. Before Bucky had told him he liked Sam, this sort of exchange would have never bothered Steve. They were all friends, all playful and silly. But now, the stakes were different and most certainly higher. Steve didn’t know what to do. Every option seemed like he was going to lose Sam or Bucky or both of them.

“Let’s see what’s on the hard drive and go from there,” he said, his voice gruffer than he’d meant.  Sam gave him a questioning look that Steve chose to ignore. “Let’s get back to SHIELD.”

***

Misty, Sharon, Nat, and Maria were sitting at a table, talking to one another and laughing when Sam came into the conference room. “Hey, look, it’s my favorite SHIELD squad,” he said.

“Not SHIELD,” Misty said, interlocking her hands behind her head and giving Sam a cheeky smile.

“CIA.” Sharon added.

“Private sector,” Maria said, tugging at the security tag on her blouse.

Sam looked at Natasha. “You’re gonna correct me, too?”

Nat shrugged. “I _am_ SHIELD. Where Fury goes, so go I.”

“Poor Hill,” Sam said. “Do you have to say that about Tony now?”

Maria smiled. “Where _Pepper_ goes, so go I.”

“Where the money goes,” Misty added with a wink.

Everyone turned to Sharon. “Come on, guys, I didn’t know we had to write out loyalty pledges. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

Misty snorted. “I still don’t get how it didn’t work out with you and Captain Do-The-Right-Thing then. You’re both so…noble.”

“Being on the run can really mess with your love life,” Natasha said. “Or so I’m told.”

Sharon’s cheeks turned pink. “Sam, I assume you’re here to talk about something other than my almost-relationship with your current boyfriend.”

Sam laughed in surprise. “Steve’s not my boyfriend.”

“I got money on Bucky,” Misty said. “Sam’s always had a thing for brunettes.”

“Oooh, are we placing bets,” Rhodey asked, rolling to a stop at the head of the table. “Because I just spent a weekend with those assholes and I’m hoping they all die alone.”

“That bad?” Maria asked.

“When you compromise a stealth op because you’re fighting about who loves Sam more, it’s that bad.”

“Rhodey is really over-exaggerating what happened,” Sam interrupted. “Buck and Steve got in a fight about something _unrelated_ to me. And wherever you guys are getting your information about any potential relationships between me and Steve or me and Bucky is well beyond me, because there is nothing between any of us. And I didn’t come here to talk about that!”

Misty raised her eyebrows. “The lady doth protest.”

“The lady doth not! Or does not. Whatever.”

Sharon hid a smile behind her hand.

“Hydra is trying to get a foothold in American politics again and they think conservative states like Utah are ripe for it,” Sam said all in a rush, trying to get the conversation on track. “I wanted to talk about _that_. The hard drive we recovered shows how they’re trying to take the state politically. The senate is vulnerable and so are two of the House seats. And it’s not strictly Avengers business to deal with elections—”

“So we _do_ have a line we won’t cross,” Steve said, strolling into the conference room with Fury and Bucky. Bucky looked very harassed and upset, so Sam had to guess he and Steve were still having whatever dumb fight had started on the op.

Fury glared at Steve. “I never quite like your tone, Cap. SHIELD isn’t the Big Bad you think it is.”

Steve looked nonplussed as he came to stand next to Sam. Sam looked up at him, expecting him to take over the briefing, but he seemed fine just standing there, waiting as expectantly as the others.

“Um, right,” Sam continued. “So, Avengers aren’t going to get involved in elections, because that’s kinda skeevy, but we were thinking that if you four could find some hard facts about the Hydra candidates and expose them, that would at least make the public aware.”

“A good deal of the public voted for Trump,” Misty pointed out. “And they were plenty aware he was an orange pleather bag of hot garbage juice, so…”

“Too bad we could never link him to anything more nefarious than his completely legal bigotry.” This from Rhodey.

“Yeah, well, like I said,” Sam continued. “It’s not for the Avengers and SHIELD to elect or not elect lawmakers. But we can certainly try to make sure the public isn’t voting blind.”

“Rhodey, Sam, and I picked you four for your unique talents,” Steve said to the four women. “Misty for your detective work and a willingness to strong-arm the right people.”

Misty grinned and flexed her bionic arm. A ghost of a smile flickered across Bucky’s face, but Sam was the only one who noticed.

“Fury’s not going to micromanage you guys on this one, so Hill, you’re taking point. We trust your instincts.”

Maria nodded, all business.

“Natasha is for things that require a lighter touch.”

“Lighter Than Misty’s bruising technique,” Sam interjected teasingly.

“Uncalled for,” Misty said. “But I get it. While Natasha’s doing pirouettes and playing coy, I’m busting heads. It’s a good system.”

“And Sharon, you’re the one who’s going to keep all of this aboveboard,” Rhodey said. “You and I are the only one who thinks the Constitution has any real value anymore.”

Sharon glanced at Misty, Nat, and Maria and nodded. “That’s probably accurate.”

“And maybe, if you’re comfortable with it, you can use some of your CIA contacts,” Steve added.

“Sounds good,” Sharon said.

Sam passed around identical manila folders to the women. “This is all the intel we collected. Things got a little out of hand at the site, so Hydra’s probably torched the place, but we at least know their general plan.”

“Out of hand?” Natasha asked.

“We made contact before we wanted to,” Sam said diplomatically, hurrying to answer before Steve, Bucky, or Rhodey could give their version of events.

“This feels like you’re giving us your homework,” Misty pointed out.

“Or sloppy seconds,” Natasha added.

Steve crossed his arms. “We decided to take ourselves off the case because we don’t have the skills.”

“Well, _I_ have the skills,” Rhodey interjected. “Liaison between the UN and Avengers.”

“How could we forget?” Bucky muttered, loud enough to carry but not so loud that Rhodey couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard him.

“Me, Steve, and Bucky are fighters,” Sam said. “We’re not cut off for this ‘speak softly’ shit. And Rhodey – diplomat extraordinaire though he is – would look kinda suspicious in Utah.”

“Do they even have black people out there?” Misty asked.

Sam and Rhodey laughed and Fury cracked a rare smile. The tension that had been creeping up in the room dissipated.

“Well, we have our orders,” Sharon said.

“I’ll pull together our op supplies,” Maria said. “We can be wheels up at 07:00 tomorrow.”

Misty wrinkled her nose. “Seven in the _morning?_ ”

The group broke up pretty soon after that. Sam had a quick catch-up with Misty. She and her girlfriend Colleen were thinking about moving in together. Luke and Jessica had broken up – again. Danny had gone to India to visit his grandparents. “Everything good with you?” Misty asked.

Sam glanced over at Steve who was deep in conversation with Sharon and Fury. “Yeah, everything’s good with me.”

“No weight to those Bucky vs. Steve rumors?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

Misty hugged him extra tight before scooping her cell phone off the conference room table and sweeping out the door.

Bucky was at his side almost immediately. “Do you know what they’re going to have us doing now? Since we’re _just_ the fighters.”

Sam looked over at Bucky’s face to see if he detected a little bitterness.

“That’s just what I told Misty and Nat so they’d chill. We’re way more than a bunch of muscles, trust me.”

Bucky smiled. “So, what’s next for us? And please tell me Fury’s not going to put Steve and Rhodey with us again. _That_ was a disaster.”

“Can I now ask what’s going on with you and Steve?” Sam said, wanting to hit this head on. “You’re best friends. The guy has literally gone to war for you—twice.”

Bucky sighed and ran his metal hand through his long, floppish hair. “The guy doesn’t know when to stand down is all.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, that’s been his eternal problem. But of any of us, you should be used to it.”

“Oh, I’m used to it. Doesn’t mean I like it.”

Sam patted Bucky’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on, man, but I can pretty much guarantee it’s not worth all this weird tension.”

Bucky peered at Sam, studied him without speaking until Sam had to say, “I’m feeling like a bacteria under a microscope, man.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said. “I think some things might be worth going to war with Steve over.” He pushed his hands through his hair again. “Do you wanna get some food? I’m starving.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “Off campus or—”

“Definitely off campus. I don’t want to look at anyone associated with SHIELD for a couple hours, present company excluded.”

“Cool. Steve has my keys. Let me just—”

“We’ll take my bike,” Bucky interrupted.

“Buck, you don’t have a bike. Remember, you threw it at a helicopter on our last op.”

“Fine, we’ll take Steve’s. He won’t mind.”

Sam got the distinct impression Steve was absolutely, definitely going to mind, but he also sensed that leaving SHIELD for a little while was going to be nothing but good for Bucky’s mental health. And there was the old saying, _Better to ask forgiveness than permission._

“Sure, Buck. And this time, buy me something that’s not on the Dollar Menu. Make me feel special.”

Bucky slung his arm around Sam’s shoulder and pulled him into a one-armed hug. “Sam, you’re special, but I don’t know if you’re quite at ‘off the Dollar Menu’ special.” He thumped Sam’s chest right over his heart and they strolled out to the garage.


	2. A Bandage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this was a prompt from an anon on Tumblr:
> 
> It's a love triangle, not a poly-amorous relationship. Both Steve and Bucky fall in love with Sam at the same time. Sam's confused and is having a hard time figuring out his feelings. Meanwhile the tension between Steve and Bucky is getting to a boiling point, interfering with both Avengers business and threatening to end their legendary friendship permanently.
> 
> So, I've never written a love triangle and I find them difficult to pull off (if all of modern YA is anything to go by), but I'm giving this my best shot.

Steve pulled Sam closer to him, trying not to come fully awake, but it was a losing battle. The sun was coming in through the window, and chirping birds were like an alarm clock that Steve couldn’t snooze. It was okay, he supposed, to be awake holding Sam in his arms. Sam had buried his face in Steve’s chest, probably to escape the light, and Steve was struck by how much he loved Sam and how much he wanted to stay in this moment.

“I can hear you thinking,” Sam mumbled, turning his head slightly.

Steve smiled. “Only about how much I love you.”

“I love you too, Sam!”

A dark haystack appeared on the other side of Sam and Steve scowled. “Bucky, what are you doing here?”

“Sharing Sam like we decided. It’s the only way.”

“I know that,” Steve snapped, “but I have him on Sundays.”

“Except when there are five Sundays in the month. Then I get the last one.”

“He’s right,” Sam murmured. “Although, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, there’s enough Sam to go around.”

Steve jerked awake, panting and upset. It was still dark out. His alarm clock read 3:23am. He groaned and dropped back on his pillow. This was fucking ridiculous.

 

 “You know if you hurt Redwing, I am legally allowed kill you,” Sam said into the mic while watching Redwing’s video feed on the projector.

Misty scoffed. “Legal or not, you couldn’t touch me if you tried, Sammy.”

Sam rolled his eyes. No one but his mom and Misty called him Sammy, something Misty knew all too well. “You’re still full of yourself,” he said fondly.

“And you’re still the guy I’ve pinned to the mat with only one arm.”

Maria coughed primly across the comms. “Maybe save your sex talk for later, guys.” Redwing turned slightly, responding to the audio and Sam saw Sharon press her lips into a thin line of amusement.

“Misty’s talking about actual wrestling,” Sam clarified. “Get your head out of the gutter, Hill.”

“Maybe get your head on the op?” Maria responded.

“Why are you even on the comm?” Nat asked. “We’re not going to break your little birdie. Go do something productive.”

“He gets scared being on missions without me.”

“You are such a nerd,” Misty said lovingly. “I read your dumb protocols. Redwing will come out of this alive. You gotta let him spread his wings and fly.”

Sam sighed. “I’m gonna miss him.”

“We’ll take real good care of him. Only the best batteries and outlets for him.”

“I know you’re messing with me, but you really shouldn’t hook him up to an adapter with less than a—”

“Bye, Sam,” Misty called and the screen and comms went dark and mute. Sam half-considered calling them.

“Finished saying your goodbyes?” Steve asked, strolling into the conference room. He was in a shield T-shirt (as usual, too small) and jeans.

“I thought we were getting another op. Where’s your gear?”

Steve shrugged. “Fury says we can take off for a couple days. He wants to focus on Utah. Said something about the Domino Effect and communism in Asia, but I must have skipped that chapter in the history books.”

“Just more terrible American foreign policy. Nothing to worry your pretty head over.” Steve’s cheeks flushed, as they always did when Sam paid him a compliment.

“What do you want to do with our free time?” Steve asked. He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall. This was Steve’s “I’m trying to be casual” pose, although he usually used it on people he wanted to charm something out of. Sam was tempted to be a little suspicious.

“What do you have in mind? Because, I love you, man, but I’m never, ever marathoning Disney movies with you again. You get too emotional.”

“Like you didn’t tear up during Fox and the Hound.”

Sam turned off the projector and came around the table to stand in front of Steve. “Of course I did. I’m not a monster.”

Steve smiled. “We could drive down to Atlanta. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“Who do you know in Atlanta?” Sam asked suspiciously. Sam’s mama and sister lived in Atlanta, a fact that Steve may have collected in passing. Sam had managed to keep Steve and his family from meeting for almost four years by careful obfuscation of facts and schedules. It wasn’t that he thought they wouldn’t get along. But Sarah would be texting Sam non-stop to “lock that down” and his mama would give Steve hell for putting Sam in danger so many times, but then she’d tell him he wasn’t eating enough pork and start pulling together an inappropriately large meal from scratch.

They had done all that with Riley and Riley had barely survived the experience, had been dazed and disoriented and craving Mama Wilson’s pulled pork barbecue for weeks after. And honestly, Sam just didn’t want to have to explain and defend the nature of his relationship with Steve, which was best defined as a Definitely Almost sort of something once. Sam didn’t want to look at it too closely, and his mom and sister couldn’t help but study, examine, pull apart and interrogate. So, Steve wasn’t going to Atlanta, not on Sam’s watch.

Steve shrugged. “I was just throwing out a suggestion. Always wanted to go to New Orleans, too.”

“White boys always wanna go south,” Sam muttered.

“You can pick,” Steve hurried to say. “Wherever you want, we’ll go.”

Sam smiled. Steve could be so eager sometimes. “I promised Bucky the next time we had some down time, we’d do a big tourist thing in New York. He figures he’s ready to go see it again.”

Steve’s lip curled. “Is that so?”

“You could come, too,” Sam offered, immediately questioning if it was a good idea to put Steve and Bucky together right now. “But before you do, you two have to settle whatever you’re fighting about. It’s just getting ridiculous now.”

Steve ducked his head. “Bucky’s being unreasonable,” he said. (Sam might have called it a whine if it had been anyone but Steve.

“He said the same thing about you,” Sam said.

“He took my bike and ran it to empty,” Steve added.

“Well, Bucky says he can’t find any of his hair ties, so he’s not the only one being petty, I’d say.”

“That was Nat’s idea,” Steve said sheepishly.

“So even Nat knows why you’re beefing? I’m starting to feel a little hurt.”

Steve gave Sam a peculiar look. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, so sincere Sam couldn’t even tease him about it.

“I’m going to tell you what you told me back when me and Buck weren’t feeling it. One of you is going to have to be the bigger person.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Did I sound that patronizing?”

“Yeah,” Sam laughed. “But you pulled it off because you’re you.”

Steve looked at Sam through his ridiculously long lashes (Sam wondered if they were the work of the serum or just random genetics). “Because I’m me?” he asked, his voice doing that thing that it did sometimes that made Sam a little crazy.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Because you’re you.”

Sam didn’t know why but the atmosphere suddenly felt weighty and thick. Like any second they were going to say or do that thing they’d been wanting to say or do for a while without knowing it. And Sam still wasn’t ready for it, so he slapped Steve’s shoulder and said, “So go be the bigger person and apologize to Bucky for whatever boneheaded thing you did, so we can go to New York and you can marry the Statue of Liberty or something.”

Steve huffed something like a laugh. “Liberty’s not really my type, come to think of it.”

“No?” Sam asked, grinning.

“We should probably go to Paris. Mona Lisa really hits the spot for me.”

“I’ve always had a thing for Michelangelo’s David,” Sam teased.

“That is because you’re a pervert.” Steve said, playfully shoving his shoulder. Sam had to brace himself on the table to keep from falling over. He didn’t know why but he found it endearing that Steve still didn’t know his own strength.

“Sorry,” Steve said. He grabbed one of the many buckles of Sam’s op suit and pulled him upright.

“It’s okay, man. Didn’t know you were the jealous type. I’ll never look at David again. He means nothing. It was never serious. I’ve got eyes only for you.”

“Do you want to go to dinner with me?” Steve blurted out.

Sam blinked, surprised at Steve’s tone. “I’d love to, but I promised Rhodey I’d chaperone his date with Monica.”

Steve grimaced.

“Apparently I reminded Rhodey that he really quite liked the Lieutenant and they’re going to try to actually date this time instead of just—”

“Fucking in every corner of SHIELD and Stark Tower?” Steve supplied.

“Pretty much. Problem is they can’t seem to help it. The sexual magnetism is too much, I guess. So, I’m supposed to be a cock block, if you will.”

Steve grinned.

“Only thing is,” Sam continued, “I didn’t really stop them in their tracks last time I was around for their weird sex stuff.”

“Men’s bathroom?” Steve asked.

“I’m 99% sure tonight is gonna be me watching them go at it on Rhodey’s coffee table, weakly saying, No, don’t, guys, be civilized.”

Steve laughed again, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I can be your back up,” he suggested. “If you want.”

Sam scratched his beard. “That could actually work. Maybe Rhodey’s general distaste for you will kill the mood a little.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “I really don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Hey, man, I’ve talked you up to Rhodey plenty, but that’s one guy your baby blues, rippling muscles, and patriotic speeches just isn’t gonna win over.” Sam patted Steve’s shoulder again. “Don’t worry about it. I like you both and that’s what’s important.”

Steve grinned.

“Dinner’s at seven at Rhodey’s. Let’s just meet there. Me and Bucky are going to buy suits this afternoon. Apparently, Natasha has been harassing him about the pathetic state of his wardrobe. She called it hobo chic.”

Steve nodded. “Natasha took me for my first suit. She called my style ‘tragic in plaid’.”

Sam laughed. “She says I wear dad jeans. Who knew Nat was such a fashion critic?”

Steve shrugged.  “I’ll try to look dapper tonight though. No plaid.”

“Okay, but for the record, I think you look great in plaid. That one flannel you wear, the blue and black one.” Sam whistled, being a total tease. “It’s a good look. You could pull in all the girls and boys with that.”

“I don’t want _all_ of them,” Steve said. “Just one.”

Sam cleared his throat, trying to veer out of dangerous territory gracefully. Luckily, Fury chose that moment to sweep into the room. “You’re still here?” he asked. “Get out! Go have some fun! All the world’s troubles will still be here when you get back. It’s like I have to pay you to take a vacation. Go on, now.”

Sam exchanged a smirk with Steve, before saluting Fury and walking out of the conference room and into the late morning sunshine in search of Bucky.

 

Bucky was waiting for Sam on the front porch steps, looking very incongruously surly in the sunshine. “You’re late,” he said, standing up and smoothing out the front of his t-shirt.

Sam shrugged. “Sorry, Buck. You never look at your phone or you’d know I got stuck in traffic.”

“When those stupid touch screens can register my left hand, I’ll pay attention to a phone.”

“Fair,” Sam acknowledged. “But we could get you a phone with buttons. If they still make those.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose. “We could just stay home all day and never need to text.”

“That is the dream,” Sam said. “Ready to go or do you have something else to complain about?”

Bucky shrugged. “I can probably think of some other things to complain about if you’re interested.”

Sam grinned and tossed his keys between his hands. “Lay it on me, Buck.”

“Well, okay,” Bucky said, strolling down the sidewalk to Sam’s car. “This morning the coffee machine burned my coffee and I made myself drink it because I didn’t want to waste it. But burnt coffee is poison, Sam. Poison.”

Sam settled in the driver’s seat and waited for Bucky to buckle up. “Anything else.”

“The water pressure in the shower was iffy. It kept coming in and then fading out again. And I don’t want to buy a suit. It’s a waste of money. Where am I gonna wear a suit? A fucking masquerade?”

“Popular movies and television made me think masquerades were going to be a bigger part of my life than they have been,” Sam admitted, guiding his car out of his cramped parking space.

“And I spent more than enough time in a mask, anyhow,” Bucky continued. “No thanks.”

“Okay, but there are other missions where you might need to be fancy,” Sam pointed out.

“Not likely. In your words, I’m just a fighter.”

Sam laughed. “You’re going to be bitter about that until the end, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. I gotta hold _something_ against you.”

“Have we put a moratorium on all the shit we did to each other when you first came off cryo?”

Bucky nodded. “Forgive and forget, I say.”

“Mmmmm, you definitely give off ‘resent and remember’ vibes.”

Bucky stroked his stubbly jaw and hit Sam with a smile. “Special rules for you, then.”

“Yeah? What could I get away with?” Sam flashed Bucky a mischievous grin.

“Anything, probably.” And Bucky was the very picture of seriousness, a man with his hand on the bible in front of God and peers.

“That is mighty special,” Sam murmured. He turned the AC dial up, feeling inexplicably hot and prickly. “Just so you know,” he said, adjusting the vents so the air hit him square in the face, “the same amnesty does _not_ apply to you. You fuck up another one of my cars and that’s a wrap.”

Bucky grinned, nodding.

“You won’t get out of it by doing a little sad smile and swinging your hair from side to side,” Sam added. “That might work on Steve, but not me.”

Bucky tilted his head. “I think I could convince you I was truly and deeply sorry.”

“Oh yeah,” Sam asked. “Gonna get Wanda to lay the whammy on me.”

Bucky smirked. “You’re underestimating me, Sam. I don’t need magic. I’m James Buchanan Barnes.”

Sam laughed and shook his head. “You’re so...you’re such a--”

“Yeah?”

“What am I gonna do with you, Bucky?”

“Go out with me tonight,” he said. “That’s what you should do.”

Sam nodded, then groaned as he remembered. “I can’t. I’m doing Rhodey a favor tonight.”

Bucky scowled. “Even when he’s not around, Rhodey gets on my nerves.”

“ _I_ happen to like Rhodey,” Sam said. “And besides, me and you live together. We can do something tomorrow or the next day or the next. The world is completely ours.”

Bucky dragged his hands from his knees to his upper thighs and back again. It was his ‘I’m agitated and trying not to be’ move.

Without really thinking about it, Sam reached over and grabbed his wrist, which was cool to the touch. “You okay?” he asked.

Bucky flexed his metal hand. “Yeah,” he said, sounding characteristically grouchy again, “the world is ours.”

Sam took Bucky to Enzo Custom because Natasha had offered to foot the bill and he figured Bucky ought to get something really nice. While Bucky talked with the sales rep and a tailor, Sam looked through the inventory of ties and pocket cloths. He giggled when he saw the long-suffering expression Bucky wore as the tailor measured his inseam, but he didn’t know quite how to react when Bucky clomped out (looking supremely uncomfortable and irritated) in a slim fit, virgin wool-silk blend yadda yadda ya (Sam wasn’t listening to the tailor.)

Bucky looked good. Really good. Broad as a truck at the shoulders, thick thighs, slim middle. It was all a bit much. Which was stupid, since Sam had seen Bucky shirtless a million times and he’d been just another enhanced soldier. But right now, Bucky looked like the sort of guy you were embarrassingly eager to show off to all your friends and family.

“I look like an idiot,” Bucky grunted, glaring at his reflection. “Everything is too tight. I look like I’m fighting the damn seams.”

Sam shook his head. “Dude, you look great. I didn’t know there was a gentleman under all those t-shirts and henleys.”

Bucky scowled. “I feel like Tony. I. Hate. Tony.”

“I promise you, I am not looking at you thinking about Tony.”

Bucky’s eyes brightened. “What are you thinking about?”

Sam bit his lip. “I’m thinking none of us are safe. You could seduce--hell, you could seduce Natasha in that suit and she’s unseduceable. It’s my highest praise.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose. “What if I’m not trying to seduce Natasha?”

“Whoever,” Sam laughed. “Let me take a picture of you. I want to send it to everyone.”

Bucky shrugged out of the suit jacket. “I don’t wanna,” he grumbled. “And I don’t want the suit. This is dumb.”

“What’s up?” Sam asked, brow crinkling. “I don’t have to take a picture if you don’t want.”

“I don’t. Let’s just--Let’s just go home.”

“Are you mad at me?” Sam asked, feeling the wintriness coming off Bucky like the winds of a blizzard.

Bucky shook his head. “I’m just—Look, I like you, Sam. I’ve liked you since at least March, but probably longer than that. And I didn’t tell you because Steve also likes you and it’s just been really dumb and we’re mad at each other about it. And I don’t want this stupid suit because I don’t _need_ a fucking suit!”

He yanked off his tie and threw it. Sam looked at the tie, curled like a snake on the ground.

The tailor cleared his throat. “Maybe I should step out.”

“No,” Bucky growled, yanking off layers haphazardly and throwing them on the floor. He stormed into the dressing room in a dark thunderous cloud. The door slammed and Sam winced, feeling far too many things at once to even begin to categorize them.

Sam waited for Bucky by the car, going over Bucky’s confession, trying to make sense of all the pieces and everything that had happened over the last few days. Steve and Bucky were fighting over _him,_ Sam, Sam Nobody. Sam Wilson, nothing-special-about-him-guy.

Bucky strode out of the shop, looking less thunderous than Sam had left him. Sam didn’t have a clue what to say when Bucky arrived at the car, but that was taken care of as Bucky kissed him square on the mouth. It took Sam’s brain a second or two to catch up, but his lips were already responding, his fingers twisting in Bucky’s shirt, his head angling for a better fit. _You’re kissing Bucky!!!,_ his brain yelled and he pulled away, gasping. He brought his fingers to his lips as if they had somehow been changed.

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky said.

“Whuh?” Sam began.

“You like Steve. It’s always been him.”

“Buck--”

Bucky shook his head. “I’m not mad at you. Or him. You can’t help who you like and you don’t owe me anything.” His shoulders dropped and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m gonna walk home if that’s alright.”

“Buck, it’s like 20 miles.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky pushed his hands through his hair. “Unless you’re _really_ looking forward to an awkward-as-hell car ride back…”

“Bucky--”

“I’m fine, Sam. Twenty miles is nothing. Just go do your favor for Rhodey and don’t wait too long to tell Steve how you feel. Mutual pining is such a cli--” His voice caught on the last word and he winced. “Such a cliché.”

Bucky didn’t wait for Sam’s response. He adjusted the glove on his metal hand to hide the bright gleam of silver that peeked through and strode across the parking lot. Sam watched him go, his lips still tingling from Bucky’s unexpected kiss.

 

Steve waited for Sam on the front porch of Rhodes’s massive Fairfax house instead of knocking. Monica’s flashy silver sports car was in the driveway and Steve didn’t relish the idea of sitting down alone with those two. Even though Steve got on very well with Monica (he liked her no-nonsense directness), he didn’t think he’d be able to have a very successful conversation with Rhodes. He’d tried to get on with Rhodes for Sam’s sake, but the colonel had definitely not put forward the same effort. It was a testament to how much Steve liked Sam that he was even here right now.

He texted Natasha to while away the time. She wanted to know if he’d stolen all Bucky’s hair ties as she’d suggested. Nat didn’t know that they were fighting over Sam, but she apparently had her own private scores to settle with Buck and was happy to have Steve as an ally, no matter the cause or situation.

 _Yeah,_ Steve wrote. _Not quite at the level of stealing my bike._

 _Pettiness is the new way to wage war ;)_ Nat texted back.

 _I guess…_ Steve said.

_I also suggested we go with a classic ‘gum in the hair’ situation but you said you didn’t want to go nuclear, so…_

_I glad you’re on my side, Nat, I’d hate to see what you’d do to me._

_Easy! I buy you a size large shirt. Oh the horrors._

Steve laughed, prepared to type in some emojis when Sam’s car pulled up. He hopped off the front step and beamed at Sam as he got out of the car.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing Sam’s distressed expression.

Sam shook his head. “Nothing. Well, something. But let’s talk about it later, okay?”

Steve frowned. “Okay. Are you sure you don’t wanna just go home. Rhodey and Monica can figure out how to not have sex on their own.”

Sam let out a puff of amused air. “You’re really overestimating them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in there right now inventing a new way to sin.”

Steve smiled, still wary of the tension in Sam’s shoulders, the way he was so obviously trying to act normal. Steve couldn’t think of what could be upsetting him, but he also knew not to push. Sam did a remarkable impression of a rock when he didn’t want to be bothered. Once, on the Road Trip for Bucky, Sam had had a nightmare in their shared motel and when Steve tried to talk about it, Sam had closed up like a hundred-year-old pickle jar. For a guy who worked in a ‘let your feelings out’ job, Sam could be incredibly private. He said it was because all his trauma was an expert’s job to figure out and help with, not Steve’s, but sometimes Steve couldn’t help taking it personally. He didn’t want to be at an arm’s length away from Sam in anything, even the bad things.

He reached out and ran his hand down Sam’s arm, squeezed his hand gently.

Sam stiffened. “What was that for?” he asked.

“Just, you know, whatever’s bothering you, I’m here.” Steve smiled uncertainly.

“Yeah, man, sorry. I got a lot in my head right now.”

Steve nodded. “Let’s go keep Monica and Rhodes from fucking for an hour or so.”

Rhodes answered the door in his braces. “Cap,” he said in greeting, then, “Sammy. Sam-oh. Sam-u-EL.”

“Hey, Rhodey,” Sam laughed. “James. Jim. Jimothy.”

“Thanks for this. Monica’s been here maybe ten minutes and it has been—”

“Rhodey, I really don’t want the details,” Sam interrupted.

“I was going to say fine. It has been fine.”

Sam exchanged a look with Steve. “Is that where you thought he was headed with that?” he asked.

Steve shook his head. “His tone said something else.”

Rhodes shrugged. “Just because _your_ heads are in the gutter…Come on in. Monica’s in the living room.”

Steve and Sam followed Rhodes into his beautiful, large house. It was big and spacious with expensive finishes and dark woods and navy blues and grays. The floors throughout were a glossy black wood and the exposed beams in the high ceilings were of a similar color. The living room back wall was all glass that opened out on the thicket of trees behind Rhodes’s house.

Monica was sitting on the leather, navy blue sectional in a silver, slinky dress that showed off her shoulders and clavicles and clung to her everywhere else in a Hollywood starlet way.

“I feel underdressed,” Sam announced, nodding appreciatively at Monica’s get up.

“You look fine,” Monica assured him, coming to hug him. “Tell him how good he looks, Steve.”

She said this very much as an order and Steve flushed and stammered, “You look great, Sam.” Which he did. In a denim button down, sleeves pushed up to the elbow, and gray jeans that were pleasantly close-fitting, Sam looked like a dream.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Monica, stop bullying Steve.”

Monica laughed and her eyes glittered. She had a beautiful laugh, a voice that was deep and husky and soulful, like she crooned jazz in smoky barrooms for a living. She shook her head and her shoulder length dreads bounced like cords of rope and the silver cuffs sprinkled throughout clinked against each other melodically. Steve could maybe understand why Rhodes lost his stern professionalism around Monica; she was so beautiful and put a whole room at ease just by being herself: direct, guileless, confident.

“That car out front new?” Sam asked.

Monica grinned. “I call her Maddie.”

“BMW?”

“Z4.”

Sam nodded appreciatively, like those letters meant something. Steve didn’t know or care all that much about cars. He only knew that the expensive ones tended to have a certain, “This car was not made for carrying anything but your keys” vibe.

Sam clapped his hands together. “So, what are we eating?”

Rhodes wheeled up to the coffee table. “Tony recommended this restaurant—”

“I thought we were eating here,” Steve interrupted.

“And I invited over the chef,” Rhodes said pointedly, glaring at Steve like he’d just ruined Rhodes’s speech at his only daughter’s wedding.

“James,” Monica said, stroking Rhodes’s cheek with one manicured hand.

Rhodes smiled up at her and it was the most sickeningly love-struck look Steve had ever witnessed. He wondered if he looked like that when he looked at Sam, but then decided that was an impossibility. Sam would have known Steve’s feelings had never gone away if he’d been that obvious.

Steve sat in the easy chair with the view of the glass wall and Sam sat on the arm of the chair, so close Steve could smell his body wash and the cocoa butter he slathered on every morning to, in his words, “knock the rust off.” Sam had educated Steve so much about being ashy and the importance of lotion, had laughed when Steve suggested that maybe that didn’t happen to white people. “Oh, it happens,” Sam assured him. “Y’all walk around with crusty knees and knuckles like it’s a style.” Steve had started wearing lotion almost immediately after that conversation, hyper self-conscious that he’d been ashy his whole life without knowing it.

Steve looked up at Sam, the gorgeous, sharp line of his jaw, the slope of his throat, his Adam’s apple. If he wanted to, Steve could imagine that they were here on a double date. Sam and Steve Wilson. Or Sam and Steve Rogers. They could hyphenate; it wasn’t important. But them as a couple here with Monica and Rhodes, talking about couple things like brunch and that new restaurant that just opened down the street or the interesting, but controversial biopic on that one historical figure. It could be so good.

“How’s our team in Utah?” Rhodes asked, breaking Steve out of his daydream.

“They’re great,” Sam answered. “Misty’s a little annoyed that she hasn’t had a chance to break anyone’s jaw, but otherwise, systems are go. Hill says she has good evidence on three of the five guys and they’re slipping it to our contacts in the newsrooms tomorrow.”

Rhodes nodded. “Good, I knew we sent the right people.”

“I’m a little offended no one asked me,” Monica said, sipping from a stemless wine glass.

“That was my fault,” Steve said. “I figure if we don’t freelance anything to you, sooner or later, you’ll join the team to get in on the action.”

Monica’s lips curved. “I’d put you out of a job, Cap.”

Steve shrugged. “I can think of some reasons to step down from leading the Avengers, some other things I could invest my time in.” He tried not to look up at Sam as he said this, but his traitorous eyes were drawn to him anyway.

Sam smiled down at him. “Maybe go test Nat’s theory that you can never tan. Go to the equator and boil your ass.”

Rhodes laughed. “Your vacation plans aside, Steve, would you really step down and let Lieutenant Rambeau lead your precious team.”

Steve smiled. “From what I’ve seen, Monica is more than capable. She’s smart, resourceful, commanding, a natural leader. And not to be too blunt about it, but I think the world maybe needs to see a leading face that isn’t a white guy.”

“Cheers to that,” Rhodes said and Monica raised her glass.

“I’m not just saying that because of present company,” Steve assured them. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Reading a lot about representation and such. Sam’s been really good about sending me articles and books to read.”

Sam smiled down at him.

“And it occurs to me that the Avengers could have a really cool role in changing what we think a leader looks like. Fury’s so behind-the-scenes on everything, but Monica, you’re a born front-facing leader. You could be great.”

Monica set her glass on its coaster on the coffee table. “I like your speech, Steve. I really do and one of these days, maybe I’ll take you up on it. But I’m doing quality work in New Orleans right now, helping out the little guys. Katrina was more than ten years ago, but it left a lot of corruption in its wake. Stuff that my energy blasts can’t fix so easy, but I’m trying anyhow. Would be hard to do with the Avengers.”

Steve nodded. “ _Maybe_ is a good enough answer for now.”

Sam slapped his thighs. “Enough shop talk then? Someone gonna give me a glass of sickeningly-expensive scotch?”

Rhodey nodded to the bar behind the sofa, complete with various fancy decanters. “Take your pick.”

The rest of dinner went well and was successful in so far as Rhodes and Monica didn’t start tearing their clothes off at the dining room table. Dinner was charbroiled salmon with a lemon sauce and for dessert, cheesecake that made Steve deeply and profoundly grateful that he had lived to see the future. The chef, a small Filipino woman with a thick accent and turquoise, horn-rimmed glasses, was thrilled at the amount Steve put away and told him to come by the restaurant to try some of her stir fried squid any time. After dinner, they all went out on Rhodes’s back deck and drank a last glass of wine.

“Guess we’ll be heading out,” Sam said, when the sun had completely surrendered to the horizon. “Monica, do you want us to drop you off? Or maybe call a cab?”

Monica and Rhodes exchanged weighty glances.

“I’ll call her a cab,” Rhodes offered. “Later.”

“Much later,” Monica said.

Sam wrinkled his nose and Steve bit his lip to keep from laughing. Maybe it was the alcohol (which technically didn’t affect Steve but you never knew) but he wasn’t feeling his usual animosity toward Rhodes, was happy that he and Monica were trying to make this thing work.

“Come on, Sam,” he said, grabbing Sam’s hand without even thinking about it, so caught up in Rhodes and Monica’s romance that he’d relaxed into his own fantasies. He and Sam as an established couple who held hands.

Sam didn’t pull away, although he did drop his eyes to their joined hands in surprise.

They left Monica and Rhodes giving each other goo-goo eyes.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Sam said.

“No,” Steve admitted. “I had a good time. But that was Monica’s doing, just so you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said. “You’re determined to be mad at Rhodey about that ‘arrogant’ thing forever.”

“You’re damn straight,” Steve said, although it was clear he was joking. He pushed his free hand through his hair. “Anyway, you gonna tell me what was bothering you earlier?” He closed Rhodes’s front door, hoping it had one of those automatic locks on it. Not that Rhodes and Monica couldn’t defend themselves, but the poor bastard who broke in might not make it.

“Where’s your bike?” Sam asked. He pulled his hand from Steve’s and crossed his arms.

“I had Fury drop me off,” Steve said. “He wanted to yell at me some more this afternoon.” He grinned, but Sam’s face had returned to its earlier preoccupation.

Sam jingled his keys in his pocket. “Bucky told me what you guys were fighting about.”

Steve’s smile crashed to the ground, and that all-too-familiar gut-twisting nausea came back full-force. “He did?”

Sam nodded, his eyes focused somewhere over Steve’s left shoulder. “And he, uh, he kissed me.”

The mayday sirens powered up in Steve’s eardrums. “Yeah?” he croaked out. His chest going tight, his stomach roiling, his head full of cotton balls and fear. He wanted his shield, something to protect him from this heart-wrenching ugliness.

“And then he told me that I loved you, not him. That it had always been you.”

Steve was very aware of the prickle of sweat on his palms, of the violent thrashing of his heart.

“All from a kiss,” Sam said thoughtfully.

A lightning bug lit up beside Sam’s ear and as if on cue, several more popped out of the darkness. Steve watched the bobbing flames as they went about their complicated dance. Overhead, the moon was like a glowing scythe, thin and sharp, and stars dotted the canopy like diamonds on indigo velvet. All was at peace here in this sliver of time, at complete odds with Steve’s own interiority, which felt like a blender full of rocks and glass set on high puree. He watched the subtle shifts of Sam’s expression from thoughtful to sad back to thoughtful and then finally to decided. Sam turned the full weight of his dark gaze on Steve.

“I guess Bucky saw what I’ve been trying not to see for a while now.”

Steve froze.

“That I love you. That I’ve loved you for a very long time.”

Steve couldn’t speak. There wasn’t any air out here.

“I was right to tell you no back when. You weren’t ready. Maybe I wasn’t ready either. But to make it palatable to me, to make it okay that I’d turned you down, I told myself that I didn’t—that I don’t love you. And I believed my own lie.” Sam shook his head. “And now Bucky.” Sam exhaled. “I love Bucky. Not the way I love you, but I do. I want him to be happy. I don’t anyone – not you, not me, not Hydra – to hurt him. He’s been through enough.”

Steve nodded, still unable to speak, unable to even think the words he might speak.

“If I date you, if we go forward, I’m going to hurt him.” Sam dropped his gaze to his shoes, rubbed his arms like he was cold, although it was still a balmy seventy degrees out. “And if we don’t date…” An owl hooted in the distance and something rustled nearby. A nocturnal creature stretching into wakefulness.

“And if we don’t?” Steve asked, Sam’s silence unbearable.

Sam looked up at him, every un-nameable emotion in Steve’s chest writ large on his face. “If we don’t,” he said, taking a step closer to Steve, “we’ll just go on…” Another step. “As we went on before…” And another. “I won’t kiss you.” Step. “You won’t hold me.” No more steps to take. “We’ll just have to move on.”

“Sam,” Steve sighed, trying to piece together a sentence that said, _Pretending I’m not in love with you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done_ that didn’t sound pathetic and desperate and needy, although he was all those things. But then Sam wrapped his arms around Steve and it was the weightiest, most intimate hug Steve had ever experienced, hardly different from a kiss in what it conveyed and Steve hugged Sam back as fiercely as he could without hurting him. Sam pulled back far enough to look at Steve. "I don't want to hurt Bucky," he said, but then his lips were on Steve's lips and Steve didn't give a damn about hurting Bucky, Steve didn't care about anything but this. Which was reckless and selfish and dumb, but when was the last time Steve had been selfish? When he'd decided to save Bucky instead of following meekly behind Senator Ross-- and that had been the right call. And kissing Sam felt like the right call. Felt like something Steve should have been doing all along. How much time they had wasted, how many kisses they would have to make up. Steve walked them forward a step so he wasn't leaning on Monica's car. Her revenge would be swift if he left a Steve shaped dent in the door.

Sam pulled away.

“You okay?” Steve asked, his mind full of electricity. 

Sam looked up at him. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

Steve cupped Sam's cheek, pulled him forward, and kissed him again, softly, gently, thoroughly, to kiss away all Sam’s doubts, to say _Be selfish with me. Please. Be selfish with me._

He swept his thumb over the shell of Sam's ear, then to part his lips. And Sam sighed and relaxed into it, let Steve hold up the weight of his hard, warm body. And Steve couldn’t believe that this was happening. That after Peggy and Sharon, non-starters because heroism required sacrifices, sacrifices that had hurt to make because both Peggy and Sharon could have been something special, something real and good, that after all that, he could maybe have....Just when Steve had sort of decided that Captain America didn’t get to have more than a fleeting kiss before everything went to hell, here he was having his second kiss with Sam, standing in Rhodey’s driveway, heart racing like a chariot, only distant aware of the Virginia summer air like warm bathwater, the bright halo of Rhodey's porch light, the nocturnal symphony of forest creatures. Steve knew that all that was happening, but it was so blissfully, beautifully far away. 

He was _in_ this moment, the scratch of Sam’s facial hair, the lovely rhythm of  his lips, the push and pull of their hips. It was all so good, Steve half expected Fury to run in and tell them the world was on fire. Because when had Steve ever been allowed to have something this nice before, this perfect. His hands moved to Sam’s hips to slot them together for better friction and Sam groaned into his mouth. And Steve hadn’t been drunk since before the serum, but if he had to guess, he’d say this was a close approximation.

“We should—” Sam began as Steve kissed down his neck. “We should go. We should go home.”

“Uh-huh,” Steve agreed, not really hearing but knowing that he’d agree to anything Sam said right now.

“Bucky,” Sam said and that snapped Steve out of his lust-fog. “What are we going to say to Bucky?”

Steve dropped his head to Sam's shoulder. “Fuck.”

Sam nodded.

“Well, first,” Steve said, “I’m pretty sure I have to apologize to him. I was a complete and total ass.”

“And then what?” Sam asked. “I say, ‘Sorry you liked me but I’m going to date your best friend? And also, I want you to _keep_ being my friend?’ This is a mess, Steve.”

Steve scowled. “Why is everything always so complicated? I like you. You like me. That should be it.”

Sam smiled. “We’ve talked about you railing against the inherent unfairness of the world.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “And if I got a raw deal, everything goes double, triple for Bucky.”

Sam nodded, his forehead wrinkling.

“What?” Steve said.

“I just have the feeling that in some universe, maybe the next one over, I ended up with Bucky and you’re the one who’s sad. And I don’t like that universe either.”

Steve _hated_ that universe.

“Well,” he said, trying for jocular and cavalier, “in some universe Tony and I are a couple, you and I never met, and Bucky’s Captain America.”

Sam gently head-butted Steve’s shoulder. “You’re not helping.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Steve admitted. “It’s going to be awkward. There’s no way around it.”

“We could procrastinate for a little while,” Sam said.

“Doing wha—oh! Yes, we could.” Steve kissed Sam’s knuckles, before basically hauling him down the driveway. “Nat put this on my list of things to do,” he said when they were settled in Sam’s car.

“What?” Sam asked, biting Steve’s bottom lip.

“Making it in the backseat of a car.”

Sam grinned. “I’m happy to assist.”

When they got home, Bucky’s door was closed, which was a small measure of relief. Steve didn’t want to come down from this high just yet.

“I guess it’s a bad idea for me to stay the night,” Steve murmured.

Sam nodded.

Steve leaned forward and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Sam’s lips. “Okay. I love you.” God, it felt good to say that. “I love you,” he repeated, grinning. “I love you.”

Sam buried his face in Steve’s neck. “I love you too,” he said and it was like someone had set off fireworks in Steve’s personal sky. He hugged Sam hard, didn’t want to let go, wanted to walk them into his bedroom, and fall asleep entwined.

“We’ll tell Bucky in the morning,” he said. “Quick and direct, like taking off a bandage.”

Sam nodded, still holding him tight. “Our honeymoon lasted about two hours,” he kidded.

“This was a practice honeymoon,” Steve assured him. “We’ll have a real deal one. Promise.”

 

The next morning, Sam woke up with bars of sun on his face, feeling inexplicably excited before he remembered. _Steve_! And then it all plummeted when he remembered. Bucky. _Like taking off a bandage,_ Steve had said. Okay, Sam could do this. He showered and dressed quickly and went downstairs. Steve was in the kitchen scrambling eggs.

“Good morning,” he said, all soft and sweet.

Sam pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Hi, Bucky up?”

Steve shook his head. “He left. I didn’t see him, but he, uh, left a note.” He tilted his head toward the kitchen table.

In his chicken scratch, barely legible hand, Bucky had written, _Misty asked for back-up. Newsroom hostage situation. Definitely Hydra._

 “Nat thinks Hydra knows we’re trying to expose them. So this is their response.”

“Do they need us?” Sam asked.

Steve shook his head. “Sharon’s really good with hostage situations; so’s Nat. Not actually sure why they wanted Bucky. He doesn’t do people work that well.”

Sam held Bucky’s note in his hand. “Probably Misty wanted back-up in case it came down to strong-arming.”

“Maybe,” Steve said.

“What?”

Steve shrugged. “I’m just worried maybe Bucky ran away. Felt like he had to leave us alone.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Maybe I’ll call Misty. Make sure he’s with them, not doing anything stupid.”

“Smart. Then maybe we can have breakfast, enjoy the alone time.”

Bucky was with Misty and Hill, had apparently taken the quinjet last night. He, Hill, and Misty were strategizing how to take the newsroom if Natasha and Sharon’s negotiating didn’t play out well. Misty said he seemed fine, a little agitated but his normal self otherwise. Misty suspected he’d let her win their arm-wrestling match.

“So, he’s okay?” Sam repeated.

“Yeah, Sam. Stop worrying about him. He’s a grown ass man. Damn. You guys are so co-dependent. And before you ask, I did break Redwing into a thousand pieces and threw them into the lake.”

“I know you’re kidding, Mercedes, but I will kick your ass from here to kingdom come if he comes back to me in less than mint condition.”

“First of all, don’t call me Mercedes, Samuel. Second, I look forward to the day _you_ kick my ass.”

“I—”

“Whoops, gotta go. Maria’s giving me the stank eye.” The line went dead.

“So, Bucky’s okay?” Steve asked when Sam put down his phone.

“Yeah, Misty seems to think so.”

“You’ve got to work on that weird thing you have with the drone, by the way.”

“Et tu, Steve? Et tu?”

Steve and Sam spent the rest of the day doing all the dumb couple-y things Steve had read couples were supposed to do. They went on a walk, they got ice cream, they made out during a scary movie, they made out again in the car, they made out again on the couch, they did more than make out in the shower. It was a perfect day and Sam was almost embarrassed at how easy it was to push his guilt about Bucky to the back of his mind.

Which was why when Misty called to say that Bucky was in the hospital, Sam’s first thought was, _This is my fault._

“Your fault?” Misty said. “I was the one running at his 6. I shoulda clocked the bomb. I’m sorry, Sam.”

“How bad is he?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me in. I’m not family. You guys should come quick.”

 

 Sam went in to see Bucky first to give Steve a moment to collect himself. He was in there a while, fifteen minutes at least, during which time Steve calmed down, got agitated all over again, calmed down, and re-panicked. Natasha had to drag him into a chair and Sharon kept swatting his knee to get him to stop jiggling it. Misty was curled up on a stretcher in the corner, knocked out, her curly fro like a dark halo. She had apparently stayed up all night with Bucky and Natasha had had to bribe an orderly to stick Misty with a sizeable dose of sleep medicine to bring her down.

“Misty really doesn’t like needles,” Colleen said (she’d taken the redeye the moment she heard about the bomb).

Natasha shrugged. “She’ll forgive me.”

Colleen looked skeptical as she pulled the hospital blanket over Misty’s gold prosthetic.

"At least we saved the hostages," Sharon said. "And we outed the HYDRA candidates before they could cut the feeds. Them blowing up a news station didn't help their cause either."

Natasha nodded. "Bucky's hurt, but -- you know-- mission accomplished." She high-fived Sharon. 

When Sam came out of Bucky’s room, he was smiling, which was obviously a good sign. He patted Steve’s shoulder and took his chair when Steve stood up. Steve wiped his palms on his jeans.

“Hey, Buck,” he said, coming into the room where Bucky was sitting shirtless, his torso wrapped in bandages and several ugly cuts splitting his lip, his eyebrow, and one gash on his cheekbone that apparently needed air more than stitches.

Bucky raised his chin. “Hey, Stevie.”

“So, you went and got yourself blown up.”

“Figured I couldn’t let you have all the stupid heroics, Mr. Jump-on-Grenades.”

“You feeling okay?”

Bucky shrugged. “Is it shallow that I’m mad they had to cut my hair?”

“Where?” Steve asked.

“The back. Sam called it an undercut. Piece of shrapnel had to come out of my head.”

“Hair grows back,” Steve said. He sat on the edge of Bucky’s bed. “I’m sorry, Bucky. About everything. I was an asshole.”

“Me too,” Bucky admitted. “Pretty good excuse, though, right. It’s Sam. He’s—” Bucky cleared his throat. “He’s special, Stevie. And you’re very lucky.”

“I know,” Steve said. “To have both of you. You’re my brother, Buck. I’ve lost you too many times already.’

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. You’re not losing me.”

“I know. I just—I don’t want to. Ever.”

Bucky sat up and winced.

“And I really don’t want you to feel awkward or uncomfortable when you come home, you know?”

“All this healing is going to be a good distraction,” Bucky assured him.

“So we’re going to be okay?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. “This sucks. There’s no two ways about it. But I’ve fallen off the side of a mountain, lost my arm, been brainwashed into an assassin, been framed for a terrorist explosion, been put back on cryo because my brain might’ve been used against me, and then I got blown up in fucking Utah. This whole thing with Sam is—well, it’s not nothing. But it’s not so bad. It’s normal human hurt. Which is good in a way. To remind me that I’m…human.”

Bucky’s sad smile hurt to witness, but then it turned mischievous and bright as Bucky added, “Besides, Sam told me I’m the best looking guy he’s ever seen, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me to find love.”

“He did not!” Steve said.

Bucky grinned. “Something about my beautiful flowing hair and my dreamy blue eyes. I think he might have said how great my shoulders and thighs are. Used one of those newfangled words: thicc? Two C’s. I don’t know. He heaped so many compliments on me, I got confused.”

“So this is your coping mechanism?” Steve laughed. “Being a little shit?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “That and your bike.”

“No.”

“Let me use it on Sundays.”

“Go buy your own bike.”

“I like yours.”

“Our eternal problem, it would seem.”

“Sundays, Steve! You and Sam will probably be going on double dates with Monica and Rhodey. You won’t even need it. How am I going to pick up a nice guy or girl if I don’t have a cool bike?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “One Sunday a month.”

“Four.”

“Two.”

“Two and a Friday night.”

“Fine.”

“And Sam has to let me win in Call of Duty.”

“Dude, you gotta take that up with him.”

“Fine,” Bucky said. “Sam! Sam, get in here! You have to settle something.”

And Sam poked his head around the door and Steve’s heart clenched with unabashed, pure sunshine-love, and when he looked at Bucky, whose eye’s flashed with that same kind of love, he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But he also knew that Bucky was strong and resilient and that there was someone out there who was going to make his eyes light up, who was going to love him back the way he deserved to be loved. And as Sam vehemently and robustly refused to sully his Call of Duty honor, Steve looked at his boyfriend and then at his best friend and thought, _It’s going to be alright._

 

[And for my poor Sambucky shippers]

_In a parallel universe; Enzo Custom Suits_

Sam took Bucky to Enzo Custom because Natasha had offered to foot the bill and he figured Bucky ought to get something really nice. While Bucky talked with the sales rep and a tailor, Sam looked through the inventory of ties and pocket cloths. He giggled when he saw the long-suffering expression Bucky wore as the tailor measured his inseam, but he didn’t know quite how to react when Bucky clomped out (looking supremely uncomfortable and irritated) in a slim fit, virgin wool-silk blend yadda yadda ya (Sam wasn’t listening to the tailor any more).

Bucky looked -- in spite of his harassed expression -- good. Like really, really good. Broad as a truck at the shoulders, thick thighs, slim middle. It was all a bit much. Which was stupid, since Sam had seen Bucky shirtless a million times. But right now. Well, right now, Bucky looked like the sort of guy you were embarrassingly eager to show off to all your friends and family. Like maybe Sam and Bucky needed to jump on a plane to Atlanta right now, because _damn_.

“I look like an idiot,” Bucky grunted, glaring at his reflection. “Everything is too tight. I’m fighting the damn seams.”

Sam shook his head. “Dude, you look amazing. I didn’t know there was a gentleman under all those t-shirts and henleys.”

Bucky scowled. “I feel like Tony. I. Hate. Tony.”

“I promise you, I am _not_ looking at you thinking about Tony.”

Bucky’s eyes brightened. “What are you thinking about?”

Sam tapped his finger on his chin. “I’m thinking we need a picture of this for posterity. When am I ever gonna convince you to put on a suit again?”

“The way you’re looking at me right now, I’m thinking I never want to take it off.”

Sam grinned, distantly aware that this had taken on an edge their flirting normally avoided. Like maybe there could be actual consequences for their words. And Sam was finding he didn’t mind that at all.

“Well, maybe I’d want you to take it off sometimes,” Sam said, eyes locked on Bucky.

Bucky’s lips parted. “For what?”

Sam shrugged. “You know, showers, bedtime, getting it cleaned. I’d help of course. Untying ties can be pretty tricky.”

“Uhhhh.”

“If you don’t need help, you don’t need help,” Sam said, giving Bucky an out in case he was reading this all very wrong.

“I need help,” Bucky said. He held out the end of his tie. “Help me, Sam.”

“Buckles are tricky, too,” Sam said, as he loosened the tie, maintaining eye contact all the while.

“And zippers,” Bucky added.

“Especially zippers.”

The tailor cleared his throat. “Maybe I should step out.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, eyes dropping to Bucky’s lips. “Maybe you should.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to all my Samstevebucky and Sambucky shippers. The prompt said no polyamory and technically I don't ship Samstevebucky or Sambucky (although I see their merits).
> 
> I had to be true to my heart and my heart is sailing on HMS Samsteve. But Bucky's gonna be fine and you can always just focus on the alt universe at the end if you need to. 
> 
> Thanks for the prompt. It was a lot of fun. Come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://meegansfuckingjacket.tumblr.com)
> 
> I didn't proof this nearly enough but I have work the next couple of days and I know I'm not going to proof it then. So sorry for any dumb mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> This got away from me and turned into a certified plot. I don't know when I'll post the next chapter because I haven't written it and my life is a little bit in shambles right now, but I'm brainstorming hard to find resolutions for everyone involved.


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